Samsung says number of Galaxy S5s with non-working camera small

A man uses his mobile phone in front of a giant advertisement promoting Samsung Electronics' new Galaxy S5 smartphone, at an art hall in central Seoul April 15, 2014. REUTERS/Kim Hong-Ji

SEOUL (Reuters) - Samsung Electronics Co Ltd said the number of its flagship Galaxy S5 smartphones shipped with non-working cameras was “very limited” and that it has taken measures to ensure the issue does not recur in new shipments.

Reports of the problem surfaced last week and come less than a month after the phone’s global launch, with Samsung banking on the S5 to outdo its predecessor and rebuild momentum for the brand in an increasingly competitive market.

The South Korean firm has warned profits are likely to have fallen in January-March from a year earlier, its second straight quarter of decline.

“We have discovered that the issue has been seen in a very limited portion of early production Galaxy S5 units, and was caused by complications in the ROM (Read Only Memory) component which stores the information necessary to operate the camera,” Samsung said in an e-mailed statement.

A company spokeswoman on Monday declined to specify the number of phones affected but said the problem had been reported in the United States and a few other countries.

Customers affected by the S5 camera failure should contact Samsung’s customer service or the mobile service provider, she said.